3/1 To Win
Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne says there's a 'real confidence building' in camp following the 3-0 victory over Leyton Orient on Saturday afternoon.
The Rams made it five wins on the bounce in Sky Bet League One against the O's thanks to goals from Louie Sibley, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Tom Barkhuizen - a result which moved them up to fifth in the division.
Speaking to RamsTV after the final whistle, Warne spoke about the current confidence in the squad at the moment and reflected on the performance as a whole.
On his overall thoughts of the performance...
The lads are in good fettle. They are good friends on and off the pitch and I feel you play better like that. There's a real confidence building and wins give you that. We rode our luck in the first 10 minutes or so but you need a bit of that to win games. After that, I thought we were handsome for the win. We had no injuries and no massive issues but I do think we could have played better in a lot of parts of the game, but it's just about winning. We'll still learn from it and we still need to get better because that level of performance I don't think is enough.
On what he enjoyed about the performance...
We looked pretty solid and that's what pleased me the most. We looked energetic, we got through and I thought the lads performed at a level, but to be successful we need to keep aspiring to the level above that.
On Louie Sibley's goal...
I'm really glad he scored because if he didn't score from his shot he'd have been in 'deep' for not putting Birdy in! He had different roles to play in today, it was the same with the wide players, and I thought he and the lads dealt with it pretty well. He was one of many good performances.
On the Orient red card before half-time...
At the time I thought it was a foul but I have the benefit of an iPad on the side of the pitch and we watched the incident again and the lad has swung his arm and caught Collo in the face. I'm not saying he intended to do it but I think it's fair to say it's a red card and it changed things a little bit for half-time. It was a relief that we scored our second goal so soon after the break because it probably messed their game plan up. It wasn't game over after that but it felt a lot more comfortable at 2-0.
On Nathaniel Mendez-Laing's form...
We're trying to manage everything about him to keep him at the highest level. He's a real goal threat and if I could play him as a 9, 11 and a 7 at the same time I would! Every player brings something different but I think Nat brings a real threat because when he's on song he can embarrass many players.
On Tom Barkhuizen's goal...
I love a counter-attack and I like the fact that Nat passed it to him. I fancied Nat to score and he probably fancied himself to, so the fact he laid it off to his team-mate is probably the highlight of the game for me.
On five league wins in a row...
Confidence breeds confidence. Five wins on the spin is good and I like to think people, when they come off the pitch in their games, are thinking about how we got on and seeing we won again. I'd like to thank all the fans who travelled down too this close to Christmas. It was nice for the players to enjoy the win with the fans and look forward to the next game.
On the Christmas period coming up...
We're not going to win every single game but we prepare the same every single week. Sometimes you get what you deserve and today we did but in the next game maybe we won't. We've just got to crack out the wins where we can and today we did.
